


Vicarious Perception

by Adanska



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Humanformers, Ladyformers, Spoilers, branch-spark concept exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adanska/pseuds/Adanska
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You can’t seriously be thinking of doing this.” The door slammed open; her head was pounding, her face still frigid from the mesosphere.</p>
<p>“You know I am.” Twin Twist stared at her, an eye already swelling (though not as bad as it could, not with four hours of icy air and rage curdling her gut). Her lip was bleeding; Topspin could taste it.</p>
<p>“Look,” Dreckdown said, large hands held up placatingly. “It’s not a big deal, lots of us are signing up. It’s not like she’s asking you to go with her or anything.”</p>
<p>“That’s exactly what’s she’s asking,” Topspin spat, and watched herself stalk off, her flight boots clicking solid under their feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vicarious Perception

  
  
  
  
“And what are you,” they ask, elbow to hip in dives and hollows, civilians and soldiers. “Aerial reconnaissance?”

“Cartographer,” she corrects, light and airy and full of teeth, and drinks the drinks they bought her before their ardor grew ice cold.

  
  
“You can’t seriously be thinking of doing this.” The door slammed open; her head was pounding, her face still frigid from the mesosphere.

“You know I am.” Twin Twist stared at her, an eye already swelling (though not as bad as it could, not with four hours of icy air and rage curdling her gut). Her lip was bleeding; Topspin could taste it.

“Look,” Dreckdown said, large hands held up placatingly. “It’s not a big deal, lots of us are signing up. It’s not like she’s asking you to go with her or anything.”

“That’s _exactly_ what’s she’s asking,” Topspin spat, and watched herself stalk off, her flight boots clicking solid under their feet.

  
  
When she was three, she fell from the eighth floor of her dad’s building, clipping two balconies before slamming home on the third. She had screamed, seizing in her mom’s arms, her bones breaking beneath their mom’s frantic hands. She spent the night in the hospital, listening to the doctors talk and talk and ultimately mean ‘ _I don't know_ ’; she laid out on the concrete and metal for two hours before a neighbor spotted her. She was treated in a back alley clinic, a kindly intern splinting and spot healing the breaks and the bruises, spending the night in her bed, her dad and his girlfriend curled up on the floor. That may have been the earliest moment, but to be honest, it’s not like two- or one-year-olds have perfect recall for comparison.

  
  
Everyone knows branched sparks can feel each other’s pain; it’s well documented. There’s never been a set like them, and they hope there never will be.

  
  
Eight years old, and she sits inside Doctor Rung’s office, her feet swinging above the floor. Her feet are bare, are in patent leather saddle straps, are over non-offensive beige, are squelching in the mud outside Antwall’s shop; she can feel the pinch of their shoes, can smell the mud, and she wants to punch Deckwall in his stupid face for being a mean _jerk_ , and she wants this hour to be over with so she can get ice cream because these things are _boring_. She would know; this was her hundred and thirty-ninth doctor visit since she turned seven.

“Well,” the nice woman says, her pretty turquoise necklace flashing in the light. “Your mom is very worried about you.”

“I know,” she says, because _duh_. People don’t go to the doctor this many times if they aren’t _worried_ , don’t go to this many unless they’re _desperate_.

“She says you don’t know where you are a lot, and that sometimes you talk to people who aren’t there.”

She doesn’t sigh, but she wants to. “They are there,” she says, though she knows that all _that_ will do is make the woman frown and be concerned and try to tell her what she sees isn’t _real_ ; she just has to say _something_. Doctor Rung doesn’t seem to hear her. “Well, we can talk about that later. Now, I want you to describe yourself for me. Can you do that?”

She does sigh, this time. They always ask the same things. “I’m eight years old, my hair is the colour of mom’s coffee and my skin is the colour of your desk; I’'m shorter than my classmates, and my face is round like a ball unlike my mom’s, but not as round as dad’s girlfriend. My eyes are blue.”

Deckwall is laughing; she punches him, her little fist clenched tight, scrapes her knuckles across his _stupid_ teeth, pops her thumb out with the force. He screams; she laughs. That'll teach him.

Doctor Rung takes her hand. She’s confused. She knows how to throw a punch; her thumb should’ve been on the outside.

Shouldn’t it’ve?

“Well,” Doctor Rung tells her softly, her hands so gentle as she cradles her smaller one. “I can, at the very least, assure you that you aren’t crazy,” and pops the thumb back in.

  
  
They are a statistical anomaly.

No, scratch that, they are a statistical impossibility. Branch sparks are able to share pain, and feelings, and occasionally the stronger ones can share thoughts, but that’s, like, _incredibly_ rare. They _always_ know the difference between themselves (even if that doesn't really mean a thing in regards to _random, agonising pain_ ), and are always twins.

Well, they got that right, at least.

  
  
They were twelve when they meet for the first time. Doctor Rung had wanted to find her other her almost immediately from that day, but it never worked out, and it wasn’t like _Topspin_ could be any help.

(Twin Twist thinks her name is stupid; she thinks someone apparently called _Twin Twist_ should shut the heck up.)

(The amount of time it took for them to separate themself out that much really doesn't bear thinking about; the session when she--when Twin Twist--when _they_ walked in on her/ _their_ dad and his girlfriend fucking on the bed, they thought their mom was going to faint. They assured her it was okay, no one was tied up this time, and she really _did_ faint. Twin Twist thought their mom was a bit silly; Topspin agreed. Doctor Rung looked fascinated, and concerned, and gave them candy.)

So, like she said, Doctor Rung had wanted them to meet like four years ago, but no one could find anything in the records, and it wasn’t like _they_ could really share accurate information (home was home, and trying to parse _that_ out gave her/ _them_ such a migraine they spent three days throwing up). So it was kind of a surprise when she rounded the corner at the market and ran into herself. Theirself. Her other. _Whatever_.

“Oh wow,” she said in unison, watching her mouth move. “That’s weird.”

“Like looking into a mirror,” she agreed, leaning forward to poke her face.

“ _What are you even talking about_ ,” her friend Genny said/shrieked. “ _You look nothing alike._ ”

“No wonder Mom sent you to therapy,” she pointed out, and she had to agree.

  
  
The double thought/doublesight never really went away, but they learned to live with it. It was kinda surprising how different they were, after they realised they were different. It was a fascinating study in nurture versus nature; Twin Twist always thought that was crap. “We aren’t _identical_ ,” she’d sneer, gesturing from her stout and darker frame to Topspin’s skittish pale angles. “Why the fuck should we like the same things just because we think together?” and Topspin would snicker, and grin, and agree, because _really_ , what a crock of _bull_.

  
  
Genny’s skin is warm beneath hers, beneath her lips as she noses her way from shoulder to ear, her angular fingers framing hips oh-so-sweet.

“Stop.” Genny pushes her back, holds her at arms length, and looks so-very _pissed_.

“What?”

“Is she being deployed tomorrow?”

“ _What_?”

Genny narrows her eyes even more, shoves her back. “She is. I _knew_ it.”

“Knew _what_?” She feels her hackles rise. “Generator, sweetheart, what are you talking about?”

“You only ever want to _fuck_ right before _she_ has to go into battle.”

“Only because I don’t want her distracted when she’s fighting--”

“No,” Genny snarled, shoving her back again and again. “You _only_ want to fuck _right_ before she gets deployed. Never any other time. Not even when she gets leave. Did you think I was too _stupid_ to figure it out?”

“There’s nothing to figure out!”

“Like _hell_ there isn’t! You only fuck me to give your, your _twin_ a fucking good send off.”

Topspin didn’t say anything; Twin Twist felt frozen in her bunk, hand caught in her BDUs, air caught in her lungs.

Genny shook her head. “Right. We’re done.”

“ _Genny_!”

Against the wall, alone, Topspin felt empty and cold.

‘ _You stupid bitch._ ’

“Shut the _fuck_ up, Twin Twist,” she snarled, and shoved her away, too.

In the morning, she woke up with one hell of a hangover and Genny wrapped tight in her arms and Twin Twist dreaming in her head. She honestly wasn’t sure what made her happier.

  
  
( _You’re a_ cartographer _!” “So what! Even the Wreckers need maps!” “You walk out that door, so help me, we are_ through! _” “Fine. You can keep the lot of it; I’ll send you the papers when I’ve the chance. Good-bye, Genny.”_

_“Didn’t expect you to be here.” “Get used to it; I’m not leaving.” “Oh, fuck, be gentle you ass, it’s fucking broken.” “No really, is it? I never would’ve guessed.” “...I’m sorry about Genny.” “Me too.”_ )

  
  
Her mouth is on fire and she can taste their teeth and he’s coming back, _he’s coming back_ , and there’s no fucking dignity in any of this, but she can’t listen to that jumped-up glory hound or those _fucking kids_ any longer, and if she can’t have dignity they’ll at least have a choice, and she’s being fucking _vivisected_ , and her chest is hemorrhaging beneath her skin, and she’ll never see Genny again but maybe they can see Dreckdown again, and the fucking computer thanks her for her donation, and she says it for both of them, their ruined mouths moving even as everything whines and sucks away, _Wreck and Rule!_ because in the end, they are Wreckers, and she fucking _wants_ it.

  
  
Generator opened the door, staring out at the hook-handed woman on her step. “...Yes?”

“Ma’am.” The woman faltered a moment, glanced down at the box in her whole arm and back. “I felt this was something better done in person; I respected the two of them enough for that.

“Ma’am, I regret to inform you that your Conjunx Endura, Topspin, died three weeks ago. She went out on her own terms, and was crucial in saving my entire team. She didn’t have much, but I’m sure she would have wanted you to have it.”

Generator sagged, sadness cleaving across her face. “Thank you,” she whispered, taking the box with shaking hands. “I assume Twin Twist’s things are in here as well?”

Impactor shifted. “Twin Twist had no next of kin on record--” she started off, awkward and defensive.

“That's fine,” Generator cut her off. “It’s fine.” Smiling, tears welling up, she hugged the box tight. “It’s only right, I suppose. Thank you.”

Swallowing hard, stretched well past her comfort zone, Impactor saluted the woman, and left, leaving the woman to collapse, sobbing, in the doorwave.

  
  
“Hey.”

Topspin looked up, her eyes smarting from hours of going through every map the Wreckers had on file (she wanted, _needed_ them to be accurate). Twin Twist was watching her, her body a mass of bruises and contusions, her blue eyes dull with painkillers and pain. “Thanks.”

She shrugged. “What are branch spark-twins for, if not to pull your sorry ass out of trouble?” she said lightly.

Twin Twist snorted, but fell asleep soon enough; Topspin continued to work one handed, her left hand gripped tight in Twin Twist's right, her ring ground hard between their bones. In the morning, she'd remember to get the papers; in the morning, she'd remember to change her NoK; in the morning, she'd remember.


End file.
